What’s Completion Got To Do With It?

California’s community college system encompasses a broad-ranging vision for higher education. Students are able to access a diversity of programs including an affordable alternative for the first years of a bachelor’s degree, job training, basic skills, life-long learning and social services resources for groups such as returning veterans and welfare recipients. This expansive scope reflects the desire to grow both the economy and human potential. Yet, as resources dwindle, the conversation about what constitutes success has focused on those outcomes that can be counted easily. Statewide efforts, such as the Task Force on Student Success and national initiatives sponsored by the federal government and large foundations, have encouraged the use of completion—defined as the attainment of degrees and certificates or transfer to a four-year institution—as the yardstick for effectiveness.

But does completion capture the full impact of community colleges? And if community colleges desire to demonstrate their effect on students more broadly, what should they be measuring? These questions become particularly important in the current economic climate, as colleges are engaged in the painful process of cutting programs, services and even entire majors. In order to prioritize offerings, colleges must understand how students are using their institutions and how proposed changes will affect various student populations.